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I honestly don't give a fsck about the new version or why it needs to be a breaking change. All I hear is: > We will begin sunsetting Universal Analytics — th

I honestly don't give a fsck about the new version or why it needs to be a breaking change. All I hear is: > We will begin sunsetting Universal Analytics — the previous generation of Analytics — next year. All standard Universal Analytics properties will stop processing new hits on July 1, 2023 Great, plenty of time to replace GA with another analytics solution.

mkr-hn 5y ago
I ditched analytics entirely when I realized they didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. Stat dashboards are skinner boxes that get in the way of doing the work of trying new things, getting feedback, and using it for the next thing.
- jklinger410 5y ago
  The entire purpose of analytics is to tell you what you don't know. But go off.
  - ravenstine 5y ago
    While it might be a bit hyperbolic to suggest that analytics don't tell you anything new, I've seen vanity metrics toted around on more than one occasion as if it meant anything actionable or otherwise unknowable. I think this is more common than the other way around. It's like the ol' conundrum where an A/B test is performed on a design change, and the B version results in more "engagement" with the site; what they fail to openly mention is that so-called engagement may just be the frustration of the user trying to bypass your crummy design update. IMO, the best analytics for many businesses is customer acquisition and revenue as well as customer feedback. If you aren't adequately responding to those inherent analytics then you shouldn't yet be using The Google's form of black magic.
    - tppiotrowski 5y ago
      I joke around that my “best” traffic days are when my website is broken and users keep reloading the page to see if it is fixed.
    - d0gbread 5y ago
      You've seen vanity metrics? That's throwing the baby out with the bath water. You just haven't seen the value it brings. Analytics isn't black magic and it won't run your business for you.
      - jklinger410 5y ago
        Some people think the existence of vanity metrics or stupid tests means that the entire concept is bullshit. That is their problem, and reveals more about their limited perspective than it does about whether or not analytics is important.
  - mkr-hn 5y ago
    I started back in the '00s with server-side stat tools like AWStats and never learned anything new from checking them. Why would I keep wasting time? My subjective experience tells me they're useless for me, and this is a common enough experience. That doesn't mean everyone will have the same experience, but it does mean most people probably don't need to feed into Google's ability to track everyone just to look at their stats and say "yep, that's where I'd expect a person to come from."
    - jklinger410 5y ago
      If knowing where your traffic comes from and what it does on your site has no value to you then I'm not going to try and convince you otherwise. You can try and ask your users who either won't respond to you or potentially give you incorrect or misleading responses, if you want analytics, you know, in order to make business decisions. Your website has GA4 installed on it, you might want to remove that.
      - mkr-hn 5y ago
        That's put there by the platform. I don't have access or interest.
echelon 5y ago
> Great, plenty of time to replace GA with another analytics solution. Any suggestions or recommendations? I'd be keen on trying something new.
- miriam_catira 5y ago
  We just switched to Matomo - lots to learn, but the data better is by far. AND it supports Do Not Track & is GDPR compliant :) https://matomo.org/ https://matomo.org/
  - benmaxweiss 5y ago
    if the primary issue here is data loss...isn't part of the solution to also find a way to take more ownership over the data, regardless of what you're using for analytics? i.e. instrument a standard spec with something like www.Rudderstack.com and write it to your warehouse/datalake + whatever analytics tool you want. That way if you ever want to move off your analytics tool (or a solution providing the data spec), you still own the data for whatever you replace it with. By sending the data to the WH, also lets you own any proprietary data you create - like the custom PPC model referenced in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30707913 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30707913 full disclosure - Rudderstack employee
    - cmeacham98 5y ago
      Look, not to rag on your employer's product too much - I'm sure it works for some people. But the first thing I checked was the pricing: $750/month just to get some graphs in grafana (and support, if you're a business and care about that kind of thing), and SSO is in the "contact us" enterprise tier.
  - basquiyacht 5y ago
    It's compliant if you show a cookie banner on your website. It not really privacy-friendly as you are still setting cookies on your users devices. There is one point from the Google announcement that I fully agree with and that is that the future of analytics is cookieless by design (only google won't be a part of this)

mkr-hn 5y ago

I ditched analytics entirely when I realized they didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. Stat dashboards are skinner boxes that get in the way of doing the work of trying new things, getting feedback, and using it for the next thing.

jklinger410 5y ago
The entire purpose of analytics is to tell you what you don't know. But go off.
- ravenstine 5y ago
  While it might be a bit hyperbolic to suggest that analytics don't tell you anything new, I've seen vanity metrics toted around on more than one occasion as if it meant anything actionable or otherwise unknowable. I think this is more common than the other way around. It's like the ol' conundrum where an A/B test is performed on a design change, and the B version results in more "engagement" with the site; what they fail to openly mention is that so-called engagement may just be the frustration of the user trying to bypass your crummy design update. IMO, the best analytics for many businesses is customer acquisition and revenue as well as customer feedback. If you aren't adequately responding to those inherent analytics then you shouldn't yet be using The Google's form of black magic.
  - tppiotrowski 5y ago
    I joke around that my “best” traffic days are when my website is broken and users keep reloading the page to see if it is fixed.
  - d0gbread 5y ago
    You've seen vanity metrics? That's throwing the baby out with the bath water. You just haven't seen the value it brings. Analytics isn't black magic and it won't run your business for you.
    - jklinger410 5y ago
      Some people think the existence of vanity metrics or stupid tests means that the entire concept is bullshit. That is their problem, and reveals more about their limited perspective than it does about whether or not analytics is important.
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  I started back in the '00s with server-side stat tools like AWStats and never learned anything new from checking them. Why would I keep wasting time? My subjective experience tells me they're useless for me, and this is a common enough experience. That doesn't mean everyone will have the same experience, but it does mean most people probably don't need to feed into Google's ability to track everyone just to look at their stats and say "yep, that's where I'd expect a person to come from."
  - jklinger410 5y ago
    If knowing where your traffic comes from and what it does on your site has no value to you then I'm not going to try and convince you otherwise. You can try and ask your users who either won't respond to you or potentially give you incorrect or misleading responses, if you want analytics, you know, in order to make business decisions. Your website has GA4 installed on it, you might want to remove that.
    - mkr-hn 5y ago
      That's put there by the platform. I don't have access or interest.

echelon 5y ago

> Great, plenty of time to replace GA with another analytics solution. Any suggestions or recommendations? I'd be keen on trying something new.

miriam_catira 5y ago
We just switched to Matomo - lots to learn, but the data better is by far. AND it supports Do Not Track & is GDPR compliant :) https://matomo.org/ https://matomo.org/
- benmaxweiss 5y ago
  if the primary issue here is data loss...isn't part of the solution to also find a way to take more ownership over the data, regardless of what you're using for analytics? i.e. instrument a standard spec with something like www.Rudderstack.com and write it to your warehouse/datalake + whatever analytics tool you want. That way if you ever want to move off your analytics tool (or a solution providing the data spec), you still own the data for whatever you replace it with. By sending the data to the WH, also lets you own any proprietary data you create - like the custom PPC model referenced in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30707913 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30707913 full disclosure - Rudderstack employee
  - cmeacham98 5y ago
    Look, not to rag on your employer's product too much - I'm sure it works for some people. But the first thing I checked was the pricing: $750/month just to get some graphs in grafana (and support, if you're a business and care about that kind of thing), and SSO is in the "contact us" enterprise tier.
- basquiyacht 5y ago
  It's compliant if you show a cookie banner on your website. It not really privacy-friendly as you are still setting cookies on your users devices. There is one point from the Google announcement that I fully agree with and that is that the future of analytics is cookieless by design (only google won't be a part of this)